


now I'm found again

by royalwisteria



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hawke survives the Fade, Pining, starts mid-DA2 and finishes between Inquisition and Trespasser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 08:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16719534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/royalwisteria/pseuds/royalwisteria
Summary: Varric and Hawke through time-- through Kirkwall, through Skyhold, through Adamant; through reunions and through grief.After all, for Varric, Hawke is everything.





	now I'm found again

“I’m not cut out for love or romance,” Hawke says mournfully into her mug. “It’s been woeful crushes on ginger after ginger. And, also, oh Maker, _friends_. I always fall for friends. Can’t you just imagine how awful?”

Varric makes an agreeing noise, which is pretty much all Hawke ever needs to keep going.

“As though gingers aren’t bad enough, I always fuck up my friendships! I’m ordained to never be loved, and never maintain my friends.”

“Whoa, there, I think that’s pushing it a little too far, don’t you think?” Varric asks, signaling for a refill. Hawke’s still thinking too clearly, a little too soberly, and the answer is, as always: more alcohol. “I don’t think Aveline would appreciate you thinking that.”

“Varric,” she says—doesn’t she sound _morose_ , vowels drawn out, a little whine at the end, Maker, all the ways she says his name, “the number of times I’ve gotten off thinking of Aveline’s legs is monstrous. _Monstrous_. Oh. Hm. That’s a good word. You should use it. Mon-stro-us.”

Varric squints back. “Monstrous? That’s an _awful_ word— and her legs are only going to get in the way of your friendship if you let it.” Maker, things are bad if Varric is actually trying to dispense any sort of advice or wisdom.

“But they _have_ gotten in the way— I loved her, Varric. I killed— did I ever tell you this?— _I’m_ the one who killed Wesley, and that look in her eye.” She shudders. “It’s awful, but I fell right then and there.”

Hawke’s refill comes, and Varric asks for two, both for himself. “You never told me.”

“I always said it was Aveline, because that’s how she wants to remember it. But she wavered, and Flemeth was waiting, and Bethany—” She downs the rest of her mug, then starts the new one, a small sip, obnoxiously smacks her lips. Traces of foam lingers. “Anyways, gingers and my doomed love life. I always fall for the one, and I’ve got this feeling anyone I love will never love me back.”

His two mugs arrive. Varric’s gotta remember to tip well, later, because the Hanged Man’s service is being unusually excellent tonight. It’s a little suspicious.

Hawke quickly gulps the next mug and slams it down. “I always have unrequited loves. Aveline’s not the first, and she’s not gonna be the last. It’s inevitable. I am a walking romantic tragedy. I fall in love and things go to shit.”

  
  
  


Then, soon after, Leandra is murdered, and love is the last thing on Hawke’s mind. It’s sad, partially because Varric is a terrible romantic—a _monstrous_ romantic, he almost wants to say— and also because Varric knows that living without love is the loneliest way to live. Look at Fenris, a walking shell; Anders, so strongly rejected by society he curdled and took a spirit into him. Merrill, though, is a shining example of love. Varric himself is a bad example.

Hawke doesn’t love again, shadows under blue eyes, skin a little fairer than typical. Or, if she does, she doesn’t talk about it when they sit late at night in his suite playing cards and drinking. She starts to smile a little more—which is good, a good sign, it’s great— and she starts to laugh at even the worst of his jokes— which is concerning, but— still good, surely? Sometimes she tells stories of Lothering, of her twin siblings, both out of reach, of her parents. Sometimes it’s early morning, the sun just above the horizon, and they drink coffee, bemoan another sleepless night due to cards. She seems more like normal, her heart broken, though possibly still in love, and as though her grieving has passed peacefully.

  
  
  


Varric is angry with Anders for a lot—the sheer number killed, for one, and a great deal more—but the theft of Hawke’s happiness is chiefest of his crimes.

Anders is dead, and Varric’s anger is useless. He will never forgive Anders for destroying Hawke’s happiness, because how can she be happy now? Chased from her city, the executioner of a good friend, executioner of one too many. She is too fair to have done otherwise. She could not do for Anders, a close friend, what she did not do for others just as deserving of a mercy she withheld.

Oh, how his anger _burns_.

It burns nearly as much as watching her walk away. He doesn’t join her—it stings not to— but Kirkwall is _his_ in a way Hawke cannot comprehend. He regrets it, but he knows he would have regretted leaving more.

  
  
  


“Did she use the same staff to execute Anders she used to kill the Arishok?” is one of the most common questions he gets at Haven. Another: “yes, of course, but who did she _love_? Who was she sleeping with?” They are never satisfied with the answer.

Lavellan, nearby one day, quirks an eyebrow when she next passes by. “Everyone’s missing the important questions,” she says dryly. “Did she, or did she not, have a third nipple? I’ve got money riding on this.”

Varric chokes on his own spit. Lavellan saying ‘nipple’ is as good a reason as any to die. Or, rather, nearly die.

She smiles, softly, after he regains breath, and there’s always something a little sad in her eyes, something that reminds him of— of all of them, really. Of Merrill, of Anders, Fenris, and so on. An old sadness, something a little broken inside her. It hurts him to see so much on her slim shoulders, quiver and bow slung neatly over. She reminds him of Hawke in the oddest ways. The slenderness in Hawke’s shoulders always surprised him.

“Another real question about the indomitable Hawke,” Lavellan says, as she stops by his tent at Haven, taking a seat on a box while he sips an ale. “Could she really crush a man’s skull between her thighs?”

He nearly chokes, but doesn’t. “Not sure, but wouldn’t put it beyond her to want to try.”

“Hmm. I find the ability to crush skulls between thighs a most admirable quality in a woman. Cassandra looks like she could.” Then, a sly half-smile on her face, she winks at him.

The close call comes to naught as, this time, he chokes.

“One more,” she says, “and this one’s from Bull. In a drinking contest, could she outdrink the Arishok?”

“From what I recall, I don’t think the Arishok was too fond of alcohol,” he says, a rag in hand as he polishes Bianca. “He was an uptight guy.”

“Pity,” Lavellan muses. Together, they stare out towards the Breach and snow-capped mountains. “Do you think she could outdrink Bull?”

“Can _anybody_ outdrink him?”

She laughs. “No, that’s right, I’ve not seen it happen yet. So, you think it’s more a Bull thing than a Qunari thing? Interesting.”

Varric’s half afraid she’s going to herd some Qunari into the Inquisition to test the theory, and grateful doesn’t cover what he feels that she doesn’t.

The sun is setting, the Breach to be closed tomorrow, when Lavellan poses yet another. There’s a flush of hard-won victory in her cheeks, recovering after the horrors she saw in the future. “Is she really the same height as the Commander?”

“A little shorter, actually. A lot shorter. She wears a lot of heels.”

“I knew it,” she says triumphantly. “Cassandra was bluffing. That Cassandra and her legs.”

Varric doesn't have the heart to tell her Cassandra has never met Hawke and so, duly, would have no clue about Hawke’s height.

  
  
  


After Haven, when they’re at Skyhold, Lavellan asks, “would she have done better?” Varric knows instinctively that ‘she’ means Hawke. They’ve just arrived, and Lavellan is wrapped up in at least three coats and what looks like Cullen’s very own fur ruff. Together, they stare into a new set of snowy mountains, breath crystallizing in front of them.

Lavellan doesn’t express much self-doubt, and she’s like Hawke, yet again. Varric misses Hawke, more than he can say, and maybe that is why he likes Lavellan so much. Not quite a replacement, but a balm to soothe a festering sore. He’s using her, which helps craft his response, “Hawke doesn’t have your luck, Inquisitor.”

Her mouth tightens at the title.

“First there was the Conclave, then Redcliffe, and now Haven. Hawke doesn’t have the same luck as yours, good or bad.”

“I can’t tell if you’re comforting me or not, which makes this exercise moot.”

“My point is, Lavellan,” he says before she starts walking away. “Hawke would have died. Hawke is a cat on her ninth and final life, she’s used her luck so often. You, however, Lavellan— you’re a phoenix. I have this feeling you’re going to keep rising from the ashes, eternal and triumphant.” Lavellan considers this for a moment, nods, and then moves away.

  
  
  


Varric knows where she is, because of course he does, just like he knows where all the old, living Kirkwall crew is, and he writes a letter of invitation that evening. It will take four days to reach her by crow, and then there’ll be perhaps three weeks of travel, depending how she goes and how light she packs.

He misses her, he truly does. The Inquisition members are a salve he slathers over his cuts and gashes— of Kirkwall, Bertrand, Anders, and, most of all, Hawke. But this salve won’t heal, only temporarily relieve.

  
  
  


Hawke wakes him up in the middle of the night, and Varric is positive he’s hallucinating. He reaches up to pat her cheek, which gets her to smile, which is nice. It’s all very nice, for a moment, a kind, exhaustion-driven hallucination, and it’s not his first time half-thinking she’s nearby, but then she grabs hold of and starts playing with his right hand, tracing fingernails up and down his wrist— which isn’t something he typically thinks of. (Once. The daydream happened once, and he can recall the imagined details with worrisome clarity: her warmth, calluses on her hands, how soft her hair was. Ever since, he’s avoided thinking of her hands and, to be honest, of her in general.)

“Hawke?” he asks.

“The one and only,” she says, muses almost, and her voice quite disturbingly sounds musical to his ears. “Come at the behest of my dear dwarf, into the very heart of the Inquisition which was once hunting me. Oh, dearie me, the things I do for my friends.”

“That’s my hand,” he says.

“Yes, quite astute of you. Your hand.” She pauses a moment to lift it up. “The right one. It patted my cheek, which I thought meant we forthwith shared custody. Am I mistaken?”

So this isn’t a hallucination. The cadence is too accurate, the smile that curls her lips as he sits up just a little too off to be conjured. And— she’s still holding his hand. He looks at them, one of her hands still tracing delicate patterns, the other keeping his hand prone. She notices his look and pinches his skin.  
  
“Ouch, Hawke, what was that for?”

“Why am I here, Varric? I scaled a _huge_ wall for this. It better be good.”

Varric rolls his eyes and pushes to get out of bed and discovers that Hawke has taken a seat _on_ his bed, which explains a lot, actually. “You bribed the guards, Hawke, I know you better than that.”

She sniffs and leans back onto his bed, arms stretched behind to prop herself up. “It was a good sum of money. Nearly the same thing.”

He goes to the pitcher on his nearby table and pours himself a glass of water, and then one for Hawke. He leaves it there for her. “The Inquisitor is a good woman.”

“Ah, I’ve heard a great deal about her.” A smirk lazily falls into place as she crosses her legs at the ankle. “Rumor is she’s got a fantastic ass. True or false?”

He snorts and takes a sip of water. “You sound like her.”

Her eyes narrow, but she doesn’t take the bait. Bait? “You want an exchange of some sort. Information, help, the like.”

“She needs it.”

“You like her,” Hawke says, but it sounds like an accusation. “You like Lavellan.”  
  
“Now, Hawke, don’t pout. Of course I like her— it’s because of her I’ve got this lovely room.”

Her eyes accordingly sweep around the room, taking in the nice rugs, the well-made bookshelves, desk, chairs, table. “It’s drafty and cold. The fireplace doesn’t help as much as you wish it does.”

He sighs and thumps into one of those well-made chairs; they’ve even got lovely cushions to match the rest of his decor. “Beggars,” he says, gesturing to himself, then waves in her direction, “choosers.”

“How rich are you again? Ser Famous Novelist?”

“Why are you—” here, is what he’s about to ask, but then he watches her lean forward, stretching her arms slightly, and the weary roll of her shoulders. “Take the bed,” he says and gets up.

Hawke protests, of course she does, using that age-old excuse of, “I made a bed out of rocks once and you couldn’t wake me.” Varric doesn’t remind her that was in the Deep Roads and that fighting darkspawn was terribly exhausting. They all slept like the dead on rocks.

“I’ve got a couch.” He finishes his water and leaves. Hawke doesn’t follow, and soon Varric hears familiar sounds of her shedding armor. Good. She needs the sleep.

  
  
  


To his disappointment, Hawke and Lavellan don’t immediately get along. They should, and it bothers his romantic sense that they don’t. Their exchange on the ramparts is snippy, Lavellan’s hair blowing in the wind, Hawke’s grown-long hair tightly bound up to prevent such a thing. Lavellan agrees to meet the Warden in Crestwood, though, and Varric watches as she visibly straightens under a new weight and walks away.

“I see why you like her,” Hawke says when they’re alone. The wind nearly carries her voice away.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Hawke doesn’t say anything more, and Varric thinks of the last time they saw each other, a goodbye in the underbelly of Kirkwall.

(Blood is smudged on her neck and he reaches up to wipe it away. Under her eyes hang dark circles, and she looks at him, empty, the blue despairing.

“Stay safe,” he says, words inadequate.

For a moment, Hawke from ten years, five years, three, two weeks ago appears: a smirk, a tilt of her head. “Worried?”

Aveline appears, and Hawke’s face drains, Varric recalls the conversation of loving friends, of gingers, of Hawke despairing over her own happiness.)

Varric shakes the memory. “But _you_ don’t like her.”

Hawke cocks an eyebrow and looks across Skyhold. “Is that an accusation? How unlike you.”

Maybe it's the sense of duty Lavellan wears, a duty in and of itself. Maybe it’s because Lavellan is like the Bethany he’s heard about: slight, wispy dark hair, a mix between romantic and sensible. Lavellan, a mixture of a Hawke Varric never knew, and a Hawke Varric knows better than he knows himself.

Whatever Hawke’s reason, Varric realizes that yes, it _is_ an accusation. “Give her time.”

Hawke’s face has smoothed and is impossible to read. “I’m getting a drink.”

Varric starts following her into the tavern, but then she turns and raises a hand. “Alone. I’ll see you around.”

Hawke doesn’t _do_ anything alone, but Varric watches her leave. Her figure is lonely; Varric hates to admit it, but he missed her. Will still miss her, if this new ‘alone’ thing is going to stick.

  
  
  


“She’s… not quite what I imagined,” Lavellan says to him on the way back from Crestwood. Hawke is far ahead, ostensibly scouting; Varric knows Hawke better, though, and knows she’s getting away from the Inquisition crowd— especially Lavellan.

“Thought she’d be taller?”

Lavellan snorts. “No, not that. I always thought I’d fall in love with her, but I haven’t.”

Varric sputters. “Maker’s balls, why would you think that?”

Lavellan blinks, steady on her halla. “According to the Hawke in your books, she’s my type, and I always fall fast.”

Varric shakes his head, quick, fast, a little too sharp and pain briefly flares at the base of his skull. “Trust me, she’s not. She’s not— well, she’s not really the romance type anyways, so you’re probably better off.”

“Hmm,” Lavellan says. Varric never likes it when she says ‘hm’ like that, or when she starts looking thoughtful, because the Inquisitor is frightfully insightful. Varric prides himself on being able to read people, but he’s aware of his shortcomings; he knows he’s willfully blind to certain behaviors, traits that would create a different puzzle. He might be good, but Lavellan is _better_. “Interesting.”

Cassandra pulls up to them then, giving a small huff as she reins her horse in. “Where is Hawke?”

“Ahead.”

Cassandra gives another huff, a mix between disapproval and disgust. “Hawke is not what I expected.”

“That’s what I said!” Lavellan says, a tad too excited. “At least, I thought she’d be more dashing.”

“I thought the nose scar was real.”

They continue moving in quiet, muted sounds from their mounts, and a cry echoes from ahead. An eagle— or, possibly, a Hawke.

“I think your scar is very dashing,” Lavellan says. “I’m a little jealous. I have this scar on my butt, but it’s from falling into a fire when I was young.” There’s another silence, and then Lavellan snickers. “What, no comment? Really? I thought butt scars made prime material.”

Varric sighs, and then Hawke rounds the corner coming back to them, a savage grin in place, Red Templars crashing through behind.

  
  
  
  


Varric is good, Lavellan better, but Hawke is awful at reading people. It’s how she got around, everywhere, she would just blunder through and smile, sometimes only half-apologetic, when she made a mistake— to be honest, Varric’s not sure where the line between real and pretend is with Hawke. He used to think he knew, but that was before— everything, really— before the Deep Roads, days and days together, before the Arishok, before Anders. He's not sure if Hawke even knows.

Or, another possibility, is that Hawke simply does not care. She has no need for insight, because she always has her own goals and is monstrously good at achieving them. She doesn’t care because— why bother with learning people, their ticks and tricks, if they tell her what she wants to know, if they tell her what they want, what they need? There’s no need to play nice with people who don’t need the pretense; she cuts straight through pretenses and always arrives at the crux of the problem with solution in hand. There is no need to know the individual if she understands people as a whole; if people weave in patterns she’s familiar with, she has no need to know the individual if she knows a community. The singular part is less fun than a whole.

With time, the potential this theory has grows.

One evening, Varric realizes that this might be why Hawke never knew anything of Anders’ plan. She didn’t take the time to read him, believed she had no need, and Anders went ahead full-steam. And so Hawke blames herself, internalizing everything as is her wont, lashing out blindly, and there’s some sort of vicious circle here. Varric dislikes vicious circles. Varric especially dislikes vicious circles pertaining to Hawke.

  
  
  


The Hawke-Lavellan problems resolves organically and suddenly. Varric goes to bed early one night, hands cramping, exhaustion sunk into every bone, and he wakes up and finds the two huddled together in the hall. Hawke eyes him warily, and Lavellan sends him her characteristic, charming smile, slathering a bun with peach jam.

“The answer is no,” she says. He’s sitting in front of them now, serving himself breakfast from platters of cold meats and cheeses and sliced bread. “Remember that first question?”

It takes a moment, to cycle through the memories, to early Haven, and he chokes. “How— how’d you find out?”

Lavellan shrugs and Hawke isn’t looking at him, or even in his direction. “I asked, she showed.”

  
  
  


There aren't words for Adamant, though Varric is well-versed in horrors; and so, he doesn’t try.

His relationship with Lavellan fractures.

Varric wonders who else he’ll lose.

  
  
  


Loss is always hard, and Varric has lost. He is experienced in loss. His mother, his brother, his family, in their own way. Hawke is— _was_ experienced in loss— Varric can’t finish the thought. Is. Was. He cannot believe her to be gone. Had she so little believed in those she left behind? Did she think only a few would grieve, and for a short time at that?

It has been two months, and Varric believes he will never stop grieving for his Champion, his Hawke, his Marian.

  
  
  


“She part-made the decision, Varric.” It’s the Seeker, carrying a pint that she sets in front of him. “I know you don’t want to believe so, but Lavellan only made the decision after Hawke volunteered.”

“Good to know Hawke voluntarily chose to leave me behind, Seeker,” Varric drawls. He wants the words to bite the Seeker, but they don’t, he knows; they are self-pitying, deprecating, and he hates himself and the way the Seeker’s mouth tightens.

“You need to speak with Ellana.”

He snorts. Ellana— it seems most of the Inner Circle have taken to calling her that. Sometimes even Cullen slips and Josephine and Leliana tease him. He has never called her by her first name, and now has lapsed to calling her by her title: Inquisitor. He’s not sure he can return to friendship with the woman who decided to let Hawke die.

“She misses you.” Then the Seeker leaves, pint left behind, and he takes a sip from it. It's good ale. The Herald’s Rest has always had better ale than the Hanged Man.

  
  
  


Varric has always found it odd how much the Inquisitor enjoys jam. She slathers it on anything— vegetables, bread, rice. She says there’s a right jam for every find of food, one just has to find it.  Varric realized, later, that jam was scarce in her clan, and that she typically gave her small ration to her younger siblings. It was a delicacy, a rarity, for the Inquisitor. He still can’t fathom the tastes, but it feels less odd, makes him think more of Hawke, of how often she marveled over chocolate and the amounts she kept stashed away in the Hightown mansion. _You never know what might happen_ , she said, and Varric would think of her fleeing Lothering, dirt dug into her skin, blisters bleeding at her heels, owning nothing but the staff spinning in her hands.

One morning, in summer, Lavellan sits down across from him with one of her favorite jars and smothers two hunks of bread and hands one to him. It is a truce; she believes she made the right choice, and he disagrees.

“The Wardens need a Commander,” she says, taking a bite of her bread. “I thought it, and Hawke vocalized it. Stroud insisted Hawke go, that she was a beacon, but Hawke and I both thought that the Wardens would need a great deal of structure after Clariel’s death. I didn't like the decision, Varric, but it is done and over with.”

He takes a bite of the bread. “I never realized how much I cared for her until I realized she was gone for good.”

The look Lavellan gives him is pitying. “I realized. I think Cassandra also realized, as well as Bull. Probably Dorian. Varric, the way your face lights up? The entire book you wrote about her? Pretty definite signs of love. Signs I’m still in disbelief Hawke never noticed.” There’s the thoughtful look in her eye again, but Varric is weary, exhausted, and heart-sore. He does not have the energy to delve into what Lavellan’s eyes mean when he is so focused on keeping his heart going.

  
  
  


Lavellan does not take him with her often anymore. It is a well-intentioned kindness that originally drives him crazy, but one he grows to accept. He spends a great deal of time writing— letters, novels, short snippets of day-to-day life at Skyhold. He reads old correspondence, letters from Fenris, from Isabel, and the few he ever received from Hawke. She was never one for letters, though she once confided in him that she keeps— kept letters from him in the storage box that contains the last items from her family. (Contained. Where is that storage box? Who gets the box now?)

He also has letters from Carver, and Varric is surprised at the amount of correspondence they have. The majority of the contents are about Hawke, and Varric realizes that he hasn’t received a single letter from the boy. He’s concerned, like Hawke was, and then Carver is at Skyhold. He doesn’t come in the middle of the night; it is mid-morning, and he is shivering.

“I hate the cold,” is the first thing he says, face drawn and looking haunted, and then, in Varric’s rooms, “that fireplace isn’t nearly as warm as you think,” and Varric wants to weep.

  
  
  


“I’m only passing through,” Carver says that evening.

Varric nods.

“I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Varric takes a drink.

“But Stroud… He’s doing good work.”

Varric doesn’t know the appropriate response. He had not expected such words from Carver. But, suddenly, Varric remembers that the Hawke’s are giving: they give and they give and they give until worn thin, thinner than hair, and somehow her death is a final gift. To Carver, probably, as well as Lavellan. Maybe to Blackwall, Rainier, whoever, as well, whom apparently she once got roaringly drunk with.

Carver takes a sip himself. “I’m the last Hawke,” he says after a moment, and then he is crying. “Who would’ve thought _Marian_ could die.”

Varric hadn’t. He’s pretty sure no one thought that Hawke, the woman who kept standing up after every punch, with a daredevil grin and blood in her mouth, could die.

  
  
  


Carver, the last Hawke, leaves. No one in the Inquisition took much notice of his arrival, nor do they of his departure. He walks out the gates. Varric doesn’t know the next time he’ll see the last remaining Hawke again.

  
  
  


Lavellan defeats Corypheus, and Varric finally returns _home_ , to his beloved Kirkwall. And, somehow, he becomes Viscount. Life goes on, it seems, and though it is good to be back in Kirkwall, the cesspool it is, something is missing. Some _one_ is missing, and it’s a person Varric knows he’ll never see again. He fixes shit, as is his lot in life, and Lavellan routinely sends him letters. Half of them are caricatures of Inquisition people; some of them are funny, others endearing; most are designed to make him smile, and they succeed.

After she writes endless vows she won’t breathe a word to Cassandra, Varric sends Lavellan early drafts of the Inquisitor’s book. That’s what he thinks of it. Like he’s always called _Champion of Kirkwall_ Hawke’s book. Lavellan sends back careful edits, and he always replies that the early drafts are for her enjoyment, not another fire-starter to add to her pile.

Varric wonders what Hawke would think of the book, and then wonders when he’ll stop thinking of her.

  
  
  


Although she always professed a great love of theatrics and dramatic entries, Hawke returns quietly at dawn. Varric wakes up, goes through everything as normal, and opens his office door to see her sitting at his desk, rifling through his things.

“Despite being Viscount, you have awful security,” she says.

His desk is a mess, a mess he doesn’t recall existing earlier— therefore a mess Hawke created? Her skin is pale—typical— and her hair is dark—also typical!— and she’s holding his favorite quill to the light to scrutinize—which, well, Varric’s not seen Hawke hold a writing utensil for anything other than to fashion darts out of, so this could go either way. This is too early for comprehension, and Varric shuts the door and goes back to his room.

Bran soon knocks on his door, as Varric’s late, and he used to consistently run late, but that’s a habit fixed since becoming Viscount. “Sir, you have a meeting soon.”

“Can you check my office?” he calls through the door, head in his hands.

There's a moment where Bran clearly thinks of barging in and doing _something_ , but he must hear something in Varric’s voice, because footsteps vibrate along the stone floor. Then, a few minutes later, Bran flings his door open.

“Sir.”

“She’s—?”

“How did your desk get so messy overnight? You told me you’d taken care of—”

Everything Bran says after that is inconsequential, thus tuned out. He _had_ taken care of everything on his desk, he remembers that clearly. It must— Hawke must’ve been real? It doesn’t seem possible. Lavellan told him this, that Hawke was left behind, and there was sympathy and grief in her eyes, just for him. Lavellan said that Hawke’s chances of survival were slim to none, and Varric remembers the talk they had on a balcony, about Hawke’s nine lives.

But if she’s back, where did she go?

  
  
  


A long time ago, Varric shot a bolt into an enterprising thief’s shoulder and pulled it out not long after. A long time ago, Varric sauntered from shadows and introduced himself to Hawke, never thinking that in their long future together they would see Kirkwall tear itself apart and then be responsible for building it back up. A long time ago, Varric thought he’d have a peaceful death. Not too long ago, he thought he’d love Bianca until he died, a one-woman dwarf.

He thought—

He thought a great deal of things.

A lot can change, huh.

  
  
  


Varric shouldn't be surprised, but he is surprised when he finally finds Hawke at the Hanged Man. Of all the places he thought Hawke might to inhabit after her miraculous return from the Fade, a shitty bar— though lovely residence!— was not one.

“I think it’s time I settle,” Hawke announces to him, before greetings, before any sort of ‘hey, I’m not dead!’

Ale isn’t enough for this conversation, so Varric gets whiskey.

“Live the quiet life and all. Adopt some street urchins, build some things. I’m thinking of renovating that old hovel, you know, the one I lived in when we first met. Make it habitable— I would say again, but it was never really habitable in the first place, was it?”

Her skin is paler than normal. There’s almost a sallow tinge from it; lack of sun, perhaps? Is there a real sun in the Fade? There are none of those freckles he sometimes watched appear in summertime sprinkled across her face. Her blue eyes don’t move his way as she talks.

“I’ve thought about dropping in on Merrill, but I haven’t a clue if she’s still in the area. Would you happen to know? Oh, I should definitely drop by Aveline, surprise her and all. Though I’m sure she’s heard the rumors. Honestly, I’m wounded you found me before her. Isn’t she Guard Captain? Shouldn’t she be investigating rumors of the Champion’s return?”

“What of Carver?”

In the end, that’s all he can think about— Carver, choking up at being the last Hawke, traveling for face-to-face confirmation of his sister’s demise. Carver, than him, endless hours sitting at his desk, quill held loosely in his hand, knowing there’s always something to do, but unable to muster the energy. And suddenly there is anger bubbling up inside him, ferocious, needing a target.

“And what about me, Hawke? What is it you want from us? You— you _die_ , then come back like nothing’s wrong— you can’t just—!” For a terrifying moment, Hawke is looking at him, but her face is blank, her eyes looking inwards, and it stops the words in his throat. “Hawke?”

Then she’s grinning at him, a fake grin, too wide, too toothy, and she steals his whiskey. “I thought you’d be glad,” she says, slamming it down, fist sliding down to also slam into the table. She winces, shakes out her hand, but almost seems relieved at the pain, then stands. “Well, anyways, I’m off! Time to settle, pick some kids off the street, all that good stuff. Champion stuff.”

Before Varric can respond, still processing the blankness that had inhabited her, she’s gone. Varric wants to scream. He’s not sure this is real.

  
  
  


Exactly three days pass before Aveline shows up in his office, some papers in had, and a gentle frown adorning her forehead. “Hawke’s back,” she says, handing him her papers; he knows they’re her weekly Guard reports without looking.

Varric rans a hand down his face. “I know,” he says, hand hovering over his mouth. It distorts his words. “She— I ran into her at the Hanged Man.” He doesn’t mention that apparition in his office, the laid-back ‘you have awful security.’ It’s not like he was expecting a dead person to break in.

Aveline crosses her arms. “Uh-huh?”

Varric crosses his arms back. “Uh-huh.”

She rolls her eyes. “And the memorial plaque? Want it taken down, since she’s still kicking about?”

No, because it doesn’t feel real yet. Varric doesn’t feel as though Hawke is actually alive, not quite yet; the apparition and the run-in at the Hanged Man hasn’t undone the years he spent tricking himself into believe her dead.

“Leave it up,” he says and starts going through the reports. “I have some letters to write.”

  
  
  


Fenris, Isabela, and Merrill briefly return to Kirkwall. A celebration party is thrown at the Hanged Man and reports state that it spread into the streets and throughout the city. Varric doesn’t attend, and Sebastian sends regrets. Aveline comes to work the morning after with a hangover. Varric feels like he’s waiting for something, but he’s not sure what. The other shoe to drop? Hawke to appear in his bedroom, press a hand to his chest— claim his heart hers, like it was without him realizing? Every night for a week he goes to bed exhausted and wakes up from dotty sleep still exhausted. His eyes skim letters—one from Lavellan he can’t muster the energy to respond to, much less _read_ , and another from Cassandra— and Bran scolds him from nodding off at his desk.

Aveline tells him that Hawke cleaned up the Bone Pit for what’s gotta be the sixth or seventh time. Bran tells him the Champion has created an orphanage in Lowtown and that some families are complaining about their kids running away to listen to her stories, to spend a night near the infamous Hawke. Varric goes to bed with Bianca nearby and wakes up—such as it is— with itching fingers.

When Lavellan visits Kirkwall, _diplomatic tensions_ cited as a reason in one of the letters he didn’t send a reply to, she points out that they’re avoiding each other. Varric snorts, because that’s preposterous, but then realizes that he hasn’t seen Hawke since the Hanged Man, since ‘what do you want from us’ and ‘I thought you’d be glad’ were left hanging between them.

“I hate it when you’re right.”

Lavellan’s smile is somehow always gentle. At Halamshiral, she was gentle; when Orlesians flung barbed comments, she was kind; when people doubted her abilities, she turned presumptions on their head with that soft smile he associates with her. Hawke is sharp edges; Lavellan is soft curves. When she smiles like that, it’s hard to remember she once seriously said ‘third nipple.’

  
  
  


When Varric first met Hawke, it was nearing summer. Out in the far hills and fields, flowers were blooming and crops growing. The air was starting to thicken, the heat causing the smells of waste and rot in Kirkwall to permeate through stone. Varric can remember the lines of sweat down her neck, the interplay of light, and the memory is mixed in with other memories of her sweaty, hair pulled back when she was growing it out for Leandra, sweat causing her shirts to stick to her back, cling to her arms, legs, waist, and neckline in wet patches. Her mother disapproved, but Hawke didn’t care.

That late spring, she looked young. He almost felt bad, trying to rope a young woman into a scheme he _knew_ would work out, just not the cost. She had spent a year working off a debt, but those blue eyes, that late spring, were those of an innocent. He would bring it up before they left for the Deep Roads, and she would deny it with a smirk, a twist of her lips, but Isabela would agree with him later, after they came back. Hawke has changed since that spring; she was changed from the Deep Roads, from Leandra’s death, from the expectant weight of an entire city’s population, from believing she could have helped Anders.

Hawke is mercury: shining, poisonous, flowing and constantly changing shape. It is no surprise that the Fade spat out a same-but-different Hawke. Hawke would never go into such a place and come out the same; it’s not _Hawke_.

  
  
  


The hovel is renovated, and Bran is right. Hawke has made the dingy place an orphanage, with a tacky sign hoisted above reading ‘Champion’s Children.’ Carver, Varric thinks, would call it dumb, but still smugly, proudly, smile at his sister’s supposed cleverness. The rubble that had perpetually been the welcome mat of the Hawke-Amell residence is gone, the dusty, dirty facade of the building wiped clean. The door is new; Varric can smell freshly cut and varnished wood.

For a while, Varric stands outside the building, leaning against the fence. Much of Lowtown had gone through such reconstruction, most noticeably after he became Viscount, but Gamlen had been obstinate about wanting things kept the same for some Maker-knows reason. How did Hawke convince Gamlen to let her take over? Did she give him somewhere else to live— is he the one now strutting around the old Amell estate Hawke has refused to return to?

A couple ascends the stairs, giving Varric a side-eyed look until realizing that it is, indeed, Viscount Varric Tethras and bob several nods. He waves them off, and the two heads bow together as they go through the front door of Hawke’s place. Five minutes later, the door opens again, a young boy’s hands clasped by both of the couple, and Hawke seeing them out. At first, a smile is spread across Hawke’s face, something like a doting mother or aunt’s expression, but when the couple has gone down the steps and she spies Varric it disappears.

“Viscount,” she says.

  
“Champion,” he counters. “May I come in?”

“Of course.” She gestures, hand twirling as she opens the door further with her foot. “For our illustrious Viscount, anything.”

He’s not sure he wants to enter anymore, but Hawke is waiting, and Varric has never kept Hawke waiting. He takes a step forward, another, and another. He passes by Hawke, and she lets the door close behind them. “It’s looking good,” he comments, eyeing the place. It’s better than he expected, but still not the greatest place. Hawke was always awful at cleaning; some nights, when Varric had dinner at the estate, Hawke insisted on cleaning up and it ended up on Varric’s lap due to his horror at what she called clean.

Hawke snorts. “It is what it is, and it’s not perfect.”

Varric takes several steps forward. There’s an entryway where it was once just a large, dim room, a door against the wall. Stepping through the door, Varric enters a large room he supposes is a play space of some sort, as there are perhaps seven children occupying the room and playing. There are more doors, but that’s not for today.

“Is it just adoption, or are you running a daycare as well?”

“Hmm?”  


“Earlier, that couple— it looked like they were picking a child up, not adopting.”

“Oh, well, I guess some people do leave them in the morning, or for overnights, but most of the kids here don’t have family left. They just have each other.”

“And you.”

“What?”

Varric tilts his head as he looks up at her. She genuinely looks surprised, but it could be feigned, asking for attention. Varric can’t decipher Hawke anymore. “They have you, don’t they?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so, however temporary. One of them already has adoptive parents.”

“Who?”

Hawke smirks. “Aveline and Donnic.”

Ah, Varric thinks, of course. Aveline would do anything to help Hawke. When the silence has dragged a moment too long, Varric says, “I hope you’re not hoping I’ll adopt. I rather like the bachelor life.”

“You're not much of a bachelor,” she says, frowning at two of the kids who seem to be fighting. For a moment, Varric thinks she _knows_ , knows that he’s in love with her, that he would die for her and did die when she did, that he’s not much of a bachelor if he’s always dedicating his life to her, but then she finishes— “You’re too dedicated to this damn city— hey, Landon, quit it.” She moves forward, to the quibbling kids, and Varric breathes.

He doesn’t know why he wants to keep it from her so desperately. Well, there are a multitude of reasons: she died and came back to life; he’s not sure if they’re still friends; Hawke doesn’t devote herself to one person, and neither does Varric. At least, for him, not really— not openly, fully, consciously.

Hawke takes away the toy they were fighting over, a ragged doll with limp, woolen hair, and glances over towards Varric. Their eyes meet, and Varric’s mouth opens, but there’s nothing to say. He gives her a sharp nod, turns around, and leaves. There’s nothing left to say.

  
  
  


Champion's Children. Varric never asked, but maybe Hawke always wanted children, and a normal life. Always on the move as a child, her dad and sister a secret, she never had stability. And, really, isn’t that what she was after in Kirkwall? Stability. A home to return to, people she loves and who love her back?

When in the Deep Roads Hawke made a, “Bethany would’ve loved this,” comment, and Carver snorted. Hawke had smiled, soft and sad, and Varric had dismissed it as an eccentricity, but then Carver had a rare tender moment before leaving with the Gray Wardens, and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and had said, almost inaudibly, “don’t push yourself for the dead, Marian.”

Who knows what the truth is.

  
  
  


Varric writes her a letter, but the letter is just of recommendations. Contractors, guidelines for officially becoming an orphanage/daycare, helpful tidbits of the sort. He mentions Lavellan, how she’s in town for a couple more days. He’s not totally surprised when, less than twenty-four hours after sending the letter, Lavellan is telling him about how she and Hawke met up. It’s lunch, and it’s a finger-food restaurant, and Lavellan is gushing. He hates it when she gushes.

“She’s just trying her best, you know? I really admire that about her. She’s just got this great attitude, and she’s still the same, even after what happened!”

Varric pushes food around on his plate with his fingers because why the fuck not. He can. It’s a finger-food place, with small entrees, and tiny plates, and this is much more Lavellan’s scene than his. He doesn’t want to hear about Hawke.

“The kids she’s looking after are all super cute, too. Makes me think about having kids.” Varric snorts, and Lavellan falls silent. “Why’d you do that?”

Varric looks up at her, and she has this stillness. Her smile isn’t present, and her eyes are trained on his chest, mouth flat. “Kids, in your situation? You’re hell of a woman, Lavellan, but don’t do that do your kids.”

“I— I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”

Varric sighs and wipes his hands on the cloth napkin. He takes his time, until all that’s left is a faint sticky residue he needs water to clean. “You’re bigger than life, and you belong to everyone. How would your children feel having a mother they have to share with everyone? Think about your kids.”

Lavellan’s eyes rise, from his chest to his eyes. “That’s a cruel thing to say. You weren’t always this way, Varric.”

“Sure I was. Between murderous older brothers, murderous Qunari, murderous Templars— not much room for optimism with all kinds of folk wanting to stab me.”

“No, perhaps not.” She’s amused, now, which Varric hates, because she gets amused when she’s figured something out, her brain teasing a solution out of tangles of people. “Perhaps you haven’t realized it yourself, but— before Hawke’s death, you weren’t like this.”

“She didn’t actually die,” he says.

“She died in all the ways that matter.”

“Except that she’s not actually _dead_.”

Lavellan rolls her eyes, and Varric’s monstrously irritated that this conversation is now all about him and Hawke and not her and Hawke. “Varric, you didn’t talk to me for weeks. You wrote letters to all your old companions, and Hawke’s younger brother visited— you had a statue erected. You believed her dead and gone with your whole body and soul.”

Varric takes the napkin and wipes delicately at his mouth before he stands. “ I finished my meal a while ago, and I’m sure Bran is expecting me any moment. See you later.” Lavellan doesn’t say anything.

  
  
  
  


The sun is long since gone, the late night air starting to chill Varric’s bones, when Hawke traipses through his office door. He looks at her over his glasses and rubs his forehead. He’s positive he smeared ink all across his face, but it’s late, he’s exhausted, and he never wanted this position, any sort of tangible power or ability to affect lives.

“What is it, Hawke?”

“I strongly believe that we started on the wrong foot after my return, and I’ve come to make amends.”

He squints at her, down at the papers in front of him, then back at her. “Okay. And you decide now was a good time.”

Hawke shrugs and starts inspecting his office. There are various bits and pieces from his time with the Inquisition: a dragon bone carving from the Iron Bull, one of Sera’s lucky arrows, and various books from Dorian and others. There aren’t as many pieces from his Kirkwall days, running with Hawke and her crew. He has an old pair of earrings from Isabela, but he keeps them locked up for their material worth as well as sentimentality.

“As good a time as any,” Hawke murmurs, reading the titles, then abruptly turns towards him. “Didn’t I give you a scarf one time?”

Work is pointless by this point, Hawke’s mere presence captivating him, and he shrugs. “Maybe. I don’t remember owning one.

“Hmm. I wonder where it went.”

Now that she asks, he can’t quite recall, though he remembers constantly seeing a red scarf tied around her neck. He frowns. “That, my dear Hawke, is an excellent question.”

She sighs and drops into one of the plush armchairs across his desk. “You used to call me Marian,” she says and, if he’s not mistaken, she’s _petulant_.

“Uh, I was under the impression you don’t like your given name. Everyone else calls you Hawke, so I thought—”

“You were the only one,” she says, and now she seems distant, so very far away. She’s absent in a way she never was before— from before the Fade. “It all started with you, you know. I realized that, when gone. It all started with you.”

Varric doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but he does know she’s wrong. Hawke started everything herself. Rescuing her brother, fleeing Fereldan, arriving at Kirkwall and making a name for herself— this is Hawke’s beginning, or the part of it Varric knows well enough to say so. There’s more to her history; there’s her father, growing up with magic, and a fear of Templars tempered by her refusal to stay afraid. And, even then, “it couldn’t’ve started with me, no matter what point you’re calling the beginning. Everything—”

“Oh, Varric.” She smiles at him, and she’s not so distant anymore, and he feels marginally better. “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

He grins back at her, gestures widely, and his heart beats a little faster. He had forgotten how well she knows him, how she can pick apart every detail of him, how Hawke is the only one who knows every single one of his tells. “Then tell me.”

“I meant my name. Everyone calling me Hawke— it started with you. Athenril called me Marian half the time to try and put me in my place, and every other word out of Mother’s mouth was a scolding Marian, but you…” She sighs and slouches, her butt sliding forward on the armchair, then tries swings a leg to rest on the edge of his desk. She falls short, and she frowns. Varric hides a laugh as she moves the armchair forward, one bump at a time, until she’s close enough.

“What’s your point?”

“I— In the Fade, everyone called me Hawke.”

Varric’s breath catches in his throat.

“It made me think, when I got out. During, too. Hawke, Hawke, Hawke— it was all Hawke, and I realized I didn’t know when I became Hawke instead of Marian. And, you know, it was you. I realized it started with you. You called me Hawke like it meant something, something as much as Marian did. Then, one day, Marian didn’t mean as much as Hawke. And— and—”

“You realized you lost yourself.”

Hawke hums. “Kind of. You couldn’t understand. It’s a magic thing.”

“Then explain it. I can’t understand what you don’t convey.”

That sparks something in Hawke’s eyes, and her head tilts back the slightest bit to lean against the armchair. Her neck looks longer, and he watches her swallow. “I can’t convey it, Varric. It’s— the Fade is indescribable. You can only understand if you experience it yourself.”

His eyes narrow, and Varric realizes the head tilt was to avoid his eyes. “Horseshit. You haven’t even tried describing it, so why give up from the get-go?”

“I can’t, Varric, I _can’t_.”

“Then why are you _here_?”

She swallows and silence reigns. He shivers, the room suddenly too cold, his clothes too thin, his bed too far.

“I mourned you,” Varric says, unable to bear the silence. “I mourned you, Hawke, like I’d mourned nobody before. I mourned your loss like a limb, like I lost a vital shard of my soul.” His breath stutters on the way out, and he strangely feels like being honest. “I believed for months I lost my other half, and now you sit here, unable to look at me, and tell me you can’t— Hawke, _I_ can’t take much more.”

Varric watches the sweep of her eyelashes as she blinks a little too much, and then her feet slide off his desk and she awkwardly sits up. “Yes, Varric, you can.” Her eyes are glistening; Varric would say tears, but he’s never seen her cry. Not when she separated with Carver, not when Leandra died, not when they parted in the depths of Kirkwall. Not once. “You’ve always been stronger and better than you believe.”

He looks away. “I’m done for the night, Hawke. Good night.”

“Is it too much to ask that you call me Marian now?”

Varric stretches his arms high above him, feeling something in his back uncoil, then stretches them in front of him. “If you want it that badly, maybe. You’ll have to ask nicer.”

Hawke’s eyes follow the up and down of his arms, the glint of something in her eyes, and the fact of it makes him nervous. He knows she’s planning something, something that’ll cut him to the core, and the truth takes him by surprise. “Okay. I can be nice.” She stands swiftly, abruptly looming above him, and crosses over to the other side of the desk and slides a leg over one side of the chair. The pose has gotta be awkward, since Varric’s chair has sturdy armrests and so her thighs are balancing on the firm wood, but he finds he doesn’t particularly notice. His hands move to rest on either thigh, the cloth cool but soon warms between his hand and her skin.

The skin on her face is still paler than Varric remembers. There are no freckles, and the blue of her eyes is darker, more serious. She licks her lips, which are still the same shape, thank the Maker, and Varric finds himself spellbound by the color which appears when she briefly bites her lower lip. His thumbs dig into the muscle of her legs, and the lips quirk briefly.

“Please, Serah Tethras, would you call me Marian?” Hawke pitched her voice lower, huskier, and damn it all, this is _unfair_.

“For a cake with whipped cream, sure, why not.”

Her eyebrows lift in amusement, and her lips do curl, eyes faintly closing as she smiles. “That can be arranged.”

The grandfather clock in his office starts ringing, and Varric counts the peals, thumbs rubbing circles on her thighs, and Marian’s face is close to his. Varric’s not sure they’ve ever been this close. Maybe, years ago, before she was the Champion— maybe they huddled this close in the Deep Roads, maybe they whispered conspiratorially with proximity, but nothing like this.

On the fifth peal, Marian runs fingers through his hair, just the tips, her nails scratching his scalp. On the seventh, his hands move from her thighs to her waist. Her eyes close on the ninth, and when the last peal rings, they’re kissing. The kisses are soft, Varric’s eyes closing to mirror her, and Marian relaxes, thighs slackening just enough that her body lowers, lowers closer to Varric’s lap. He bites her lips, and she gasps, tensing and leaning closer to him.

Varric dreamed of this, when mourning her. He dreamed of what it’d be like to kiss Marian. He never dreamed of soft kisses, though, gentleness and her own brand of kindness peeking through as she breaks away to rest her forehead against his. He opens his eyes, sure that this, this right here is a dream, that Marian miraculously being alive is a dream in and of itself, that any of this is possible. Her eyes open, impossibly dark and impossibly blue, and her lips curve. He was kissing those lips a moment ago.

Varric loves her. He’s known this for a long time, now, since after her temporary death. He loves her: deeply, dearly, intimately. He loves her more than anything in the world; he loves her more than books, more than writing, anyone else he knows; he loves her more than his suite at the Hanged Man, the truest home he has. He loves her more than Kirkwall.

“Now will you call me Marian?” She’s smiling, but it’s different. It’s different. He can’t figure it out. What’s different? What does this smile mean?

“Sure, sure, now get off me, kid. I’ve got a full day tomorrow and it’s time for this old dwarf’s beauty rest.”

She laughs; the laugh’s hollow, but Varric doesn’t point out the high tension in the room as she balances her way off his chair. She pulls her previous chair to where it was before her arrival and lingers at the door.

“Good night, Varric.”

“Good night, Marian.”

  
  
  


There are words he should say. There are words— what were the words? Varric goes to bed, and wakes up, the space between black as it always is for dwarves. There are words he needs to say to Hawke, to Marian— he never realized how much names meant to her. It makes sense, though, since she clung to the title of Champion. It holds value for her. Champion’s Children— it’s a claiming, that she is a Champion, of Kirkwall, children, all lost causes. If she is the Champion, she has meaning. She has a reason for existence, which is something she struggled with before, and how did Varric not see this? She needs meaning, in a world where so much has lost and regained purpose.

  
  
  


A long time ago, Leandra commissioned a portrait of her remaining family— namely, of her and Marian. It was after the Deep Roads, and the only time she was able to afford it. For years, it hung in the Amell Estate, above the fireplace: Leandra sitting center in her favorite fireside armchair, and Marian standing, a hand on the chairs back, the family Mabari attentive at their feet. Marian is in civilian clothes, a red scarf twisted around her neck. Leandra is serious, unsmiling, but her body has a tilt towards her daughter.

He wonders if the painting is still there. He wonders if Marian lives in the estate, still, or if she’s got a small room in Champion’s Children, somewhere tucked and hidden away. He sits in the Viscount’s Keep, and it’s nothing like the Hanged Man, but it is home for him, now. Varric hopes that Kirkwall is now becoming a home for Marian. That’s what he wants for her, at the end of everything: a home. He’d prefer the home include him, one of those persons she loves who love her back, but he’s okay if he’s not included. Her happiness and long life is the key to his.

  
  
  


“I’m not cut out for love or romance,” Marian said, and said, and said again, drinking with Varric late into nights, from the day they met. That is how it began— Marian’s firm belief that those she loves would not love her back.

What Varric thinks she was saying all along is, “no one will love me as much as I love them.” A resigned understanding that she will give and give and give herself, until there’s nothing left, but that no one will give themselves back.

She’s wrong, of course. Isabela, Fenris, Aveline, Merrill, and even Carver, loathe though he’d be to admit it— all of them would lay their lives down for her. All of them have. Varric counts himself among those lucky to have received such a chance.

  
  
  


“I’m glad you took my advice,” Marian says, in his office bright and early, feet propped on his desk in a way Bran would froth at. “Security’s improved, but not improved enough to keep me out.”

Varric blinks, sleepy, over a mug of coffee. “Marian?”

“One and only.” She’s rifling through his papers and pulls out a report from Aveline. He doesn’t remember which one; he approves of expenses and missions, and then promptly forgets what he approved of. “No need to deal with this, I took care of it.” She snaps her fingers and sets the paper on fire. They both watch the paper burn until it’s black and ashes.

As she dusts her hands off, Varric enters further into his office, hands curving further around his mug. “Did you tell Aveline?”

“Oh, of course I did.” She continues reading his paperwork. “I brought you a gift. It’s not fair that you have gifts from all those Inquisition people, but not something from me.” As he approaches his desk, he sees a red piece of cloth, folded neatly into a square.

“Your scarf?”

“Unfortunately, it’s not the original, as I’m not sure where it went to in all the hullabaloo after— you know, after. I hoped you wouldn’t mind.”

Varric puts his mug down on the edge of his desk and picks the cloth up with reverence. He unfolds it and twines the fabric around his fingers, then looks towards Marian. “D’you want me to wear it?”

Her fingers still. “Only if you want to.”

“I’ll wear it.” He folds the scarf into itself and twists it around his wrist. He can’t tie it with one hand, and, ends of the scarf trailing down either side, extends his hand towards Marian. “Do me the honor?”

Her eyes snap from his wrist to his face. Her legs drop to the floor. “A little closer.” His legs bump against the desk, and Marian takes his hand in hers, shifts the fabric, and deftly knots the fabric. “There,” she says, meeting his eyes. She keeps his hand in one of hers and slowly, breath catching, brings his hand to her mouth for a kiss to the back of his hand.

“That’s not fair.”

“I’m nothing if not fair,” Marian says and huffs, dropping his hand.

“No kiss?

“What are you, a precious maiden?” She does it anyway, and Varric smiles, small, crooked.

“Yes, and I’m in exceptional distress.”

Marian sniffs, disdainful, but Varric can see the blush on her cheeks. “You know how to save yourself.”

He brings his wrist to his mouth and kisses the scarf. “I do like a good rescue.”

Her eyes settle on his mouth, and now he’s grinning, and she’s smiling back, a little shy, but there’s happiness there, tucked in the corners of her eyes and mouth, in the slight tilt of her head, growing hair tickling at her shoulder.

“Come here, you big lug.”

  
  
  


_Varric,_ Lavellan’s most recent letter begins, _since Marian is in the habit of writing me, unlike you, which wounds me, I’m aware of the recent changes in your relationship. Just know-- I’m happy for you. I cannot imagine how happy you must be. Please write me more. Lavellan._

Marian reads the letter aloud and pretends injury. “You don’t write to our dear Lavellan? I’m-- well, Varric, this is an offence of the highest degree. How could you.”

He pushes her out of their bed, which is just wide enough to sleep them, mostly because they sleep tangled in each other. She squawks on her way down, arms flailing, but pops up in a moment, her flimsy sleep shirt rucked up under her breasts, brightly grinning. “Stop reading my letters,” Varric grumbles and picks the dropped letter from his covers.

 _Please write me more_ , huh. He supposes he hasn’t written her— or anyone else, for that matter— in a while. Carver’s going to kill him.

  
  
  


No one is more smug than Aveline. There’s a gathering at the Amell Estate, at Varric’s insistence, because he’s tired of people stopping them to chat to either him or Marian. Privacy is, apparently, too much to ask for. The Marian-Leandra portrait has been moved from above the fireplace to somewhere in the Viscount’s Keep, wrapped up and waiting to be hung. The estate, in general, feels empty even with all their friends gathered. Less furniture, less of a feeling of home.

“You two finally got your acts together,” she announces in an impromptu toast. “Here’s to both your stubborn asses.”

Merrill cheers loudly, and Donnic raises his glass with a hear-hear. Bran sniffs, but he never was a big fan of Marian. Lavellan, in town by ‘coincidence’, stands up to make a toast herself.

“After leaving Hawke in the fade,” she begins when people quiet down a little, and with her first words there’s a hush, “I believed I had broken something incredibly special, no matter how good my intentions were.” Marian’s grip on her glass tightens, and Varric twists her closer with the arm around her waist. “But, somehow, they’re here, together. I—I love the two of them dearly and could not be happier for them. To two people who defeat the odds and refuse to die.” She lifts her flute of sparkling, and others raise their glasses silently. Varric doesn’t like the quiet that falls over the room, the eyes of everyone on them in such a considering manner.

Downing the dregs of his ale, Varric sets his glass down; Marian, smart and clever as always, follows his cue. “On that cheery note, we’ll be on our way.”

“We bid you all adieu,” she says with a mocking little bow and hand wave, and the two of them leave the estate.

  
  
  


“When did you know?” Marian asks one lazy summer day.

“Hm?” He looks up from the latest Lavellan letter and finds Marian staring out an open window with a blank expression.

“That you love me.”

“After everyone else,” he says, without really thinking about it, because of course it rouses her curiosity, and she’s looking at him with feline curiosity, whatever mood hanging about now dispersed.

“Oh, do tell. You must.”  


He lets the letter go, and a slight breeze from the window flutters it across his desk. “After-- Adamant, Lavellan and Seeker, uh, _enlightened_ me.”

  
Marian squints at him, takes the pillow she was sitting on, and throws it at him. “That’s not an answer.”

“Yes it is! They enlightened me that my grief was, so to speak, the grief of a widower.”

“Cassandra would never say that.”

“That’s why I said so to speak, Marian. She did not say those words. She said the spirit of them.”

Marian hums, her face settling in easier lines than before, and looks back out the window.

“I knew, then, that I’d loved you for years. Probably a little since we first met in Hightown, all those years ago, and a little more every day since.”

She hums again and smiles, face tilting towards the momentary wind that blows through. “How romantic of you. Watch yourself or I might start getting ideas.”

He snorts and picks the letter back up, scanning to find where he was. This missive, Lavellan signs as _your inspiration_ , which does just that, and he flicks out parchment for a response, when Marian speaks up again.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

“Ask what?”

“About my feelings.”

Varric doesn’t know what kind of look he wants to give her for the question, settles for something vaguely displeased, then tosses the pillow back at her. She catches it, easily.

“Doesn’t matter to me.”

“Oh, what tosh, you’re a liar by trade.”

He shrugs and enjoys the consternation that fills her face.

“You’re serious?”

“Listen, Marian, you were dead for months. I don’t care about how you started, uh, loving me,” how fucking awful, how _embarrassing_ , that thinking about Marian loving him causes him to blush and stutter, “what matters is that you’re here, hale and healthy, a pain in my ass as usual, by my side.”

“Maker’s tits, Varric, aren’t you a heartbreaker.” She sounds light, but Marian can’t seem to look at his face anymore, and, if he didn’t know that Hawke’s don’t blush, would’ve sworn she was doing just so.

“I only have the one question, the one I asked before. What happened?”

Marian fiddles with the fringe on the cushion as she answers. “I don’t know what happened, Varric. I don’t say that facetiously, I saw that because it was so recent, and sometimes I’m still not convinced I’m out. I need more time, to process, to seek understanding.”

Varric thinks, briefly, of that look on her face in the Hanged Man. Fear, mayhap.

“I promise-- when I figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.”

His lips twitch. “On what will you promise?”

Her eyes brighten, her lips twitching as well, two peas they area, and she leans forward to press a kiss to his lips. “Will that do?”

“It’ll do, Marian. It’ll do.”

**Author's Note:**

> I worked on this for two years and 10 months so fyi you're obligated to appreciate this!! there was more editing I wanted to do, but I'm Tired after nearly three years. I love and hate this fic. I don't even know if it's good anymore, only that it's close enough to complete that I'm posting!! even if the ending is rushed a bit!!!


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